There has to be an absolute morality

The value of anything is established by its properties. If values aren't really arbitrary, then there is an absolute morality. The rest of this is trying to explain why values can't be arbitrary, they can only be misunderstood as arbitrary.

This thread is an argument that order is the basis of all concepts. Order is very rigid, so when you build a concept like a moral system on it, like all concepts should be built, it is going to lead to absolute results. Morality is based on values, and the only way to justify morality is to prove your values are accurate. My argument is that values aren't arbitrary, thus there is an absolute morality.

Original post below:

Many atheists shy away from absolute morality because it sounds religious. I argue that there has to be an absolute morality because the universe is absolute. This may seem wrong as there are many subjective things. I am contending that this isn't true because subjectivity resides on the conceptual level and like disorder and change is not a part of actual existence, but rather merely descriptive. Absolute morality has to exist because the base foundation for morality is order, which enables it to have structure as a social concept. This means that even as a concept, it has to have an absolute and most perfect form as a social concept.

I have been working on this for a while, and I think I am nearing completion, but I am wondering what faults may be found with this line of thought... I have had to return to the drawing board to correct my errors a few times already.

This below is an addendum:

What I am contending is that once morality is conceived as a concept, the nature of order upon which any concept is structured necessitates a most perfect form.

Individual perception causes humans to see the concept with innaccuracy in contrast to the order with which the concept maintains structure in conceptual reality. This creates subjectivity.

But where I am really going with this is that order is the base functional principle of any structure in the universe.

At the very foundation of the level of actuality lies order. Without order, molecules neither form nor bind. Order enables structure, which in turn enables every other level of existence. Order permeates every level of existence as its foundation, including anything that exists on the conceptual level. For this reason, structural order serves as the archetypal basis that justifies having a moral system.

Disorder is mistaken as coexisting with order, but it exists on the conceptual level only and is a name given to an observation of change. It is not a counterpart to order. That means disorder is not actual. It is conceptual.

These things tie together to start to point out that best action can be established on the basis of the order of the universe, and the lack of actuality of disorder which would be its only challenger.

Replies to This Discussion

There is a best way to react to a two-year old taking a rattle. I am not an expert on two year olds, so I would not be the best person to make that call.

But individual morals and morality as a whole are different concepts. One is specific, the other is broad. The type is individual morals, and the archetype is morality. The type doesn't have to absolute just because the archetype does. The archetype always has higher complexity than the type as the type derives from the archetype but is in itself something of its own.

That one person has unwoven your Rube Goldberg rhetorical constructs is no indication that your gratuitously over-verbose navel gazing clearly communicates anything more than your need to mask thought-unclarity with keywords.

Your statement that the Universe is absolute means nothing without more explanation. Saying that there must be absolute morality because the Universe is absolute is a non-sequitur, even if we take the universe as absolute as a given. In one sentence, you state that disorder, and presumably order, is a subjective description, but in the next you claim that absolute morality has to exist because it's based on order. Which is it? Neither I would say; I think morality relies on social justice more than anything else. Our lives and society and universe are ever-changing, so a morality that does not change & adapt with us is bound to be a failure.

Artor, that is explained in my reply to John Major. Morality is based on the concept of "best" which is based on order. Social justice is a part of best, but I am trying to keep it simple and it is easy to see the progression from morality to best to order.

But you misread if you take it to mean order is subjective. Order is not subjective. I claim disorder is nonexistent in actuality.

All right then. I can categorically reject your allegations then. While there may be a Platonic Ideal of perfect morality, the fact is that there are 7 billion humans on this planet in a myriad of different cultures. As those cultures change & evolve, then morality must change & evolve with them. If that is so, then the Ideal Morality must change too. If it does, then it is not the absolute you are trying to champion.

You try to claim that order is everything, and disorder is illusion. This is another premise I can't accept. Life is a balance between order & disorder, and we can't exist without both.

Artor, ideal morality never changes. It is an absolute singular thing that can not change. What changes is the understanding of morality. That is like saying that the tallest mountain in the world was not Mt Everest until we discovered it. People's opinion of it does not change the reality of what is. Because anything actual in the universe is based from structural order, this forces the ideal to be consistent with order.

As for order being everything, order creates viable connections that form the bond of all structures in the universe. Disorder is the conceptual name given to the realization that prior bonds have been severed.

This argument about life being a balance... If you remove all order from a system, it would stand that all you have left is disorder if disorder is actual. What you have left in that circumstance is energy and a whole lot of nothing where that energy once formed structures. That whole lot of nothing is disorder. We call the presence of "nothing" lack of connection and it's effect on an ordered system "disorder". That is us doing that, giving it a name and making it seem like something other than what it is. The fact is that disorder is indefinable by anything other than that which it is not. Energy is not disorder. I don't think you can possibly explain how disorder is something actual and not a conceptual tool for understanding the presence of nothing in a structure, or where a structure once was. What was is not actual. What will be is not actual. The only thing you can possibly call actual is something that is present in physical reality.

Nope. I'm still not buying it. You make alot of statements about what things are, but I don't share your definitions or conclusions. "Disorder is the conceptual name given to the realization that prior bonds have been severed." What is that supposed to mean? You state that order is the foundation of all structure, but that's a self-referent definition and meaningless in this context. Order & structure are synonyms. Defining one by the other is a failure of language.

Artor, structure can be used as a noun. Order concerns the connections that make structures possible.

Order happens when something is connected to another and that makes a structure like a building.

You can imagine a building in which steel beams are bolted and welded together. In any part of that building/structure, once those bolts that join the beams to each other are removed and the welded seam breaks, that part of the structure falls apart.

Order concerns the connections that make structures possible.

I am not defining one by the other. Things like molecules are made up of parts that are in a particular order. When the connection deteriorates between some or all of those parts that make up a molecule it falls apart. The reason why is that nothing is there anymore to hold them together so they fall apart. Isn't that what causes disorder in any structure?\

The point is that disorder happens because nothing is there anymore to hold something together inside of a structure. That can be a building or a molecule or whatever else you want to apply the concept of disorder to.